>> funding for overheard with & evan smith is provided in part by hillco partners, the consultancy and hillco health. by the mattson mchale foundation in support of public televisioned. and by msi foundation, improving the quality of life within our community. also by the alice cleburg reynolds foundation, viewers like you. >> i'm evan smith. she's the most famous feminist some the world. she cofounded miss magaaine 40 years ago and no less enthusiastic about or excited about the fight for gender equality.

she's gloria stinum, this is overheard. >> lot of people want a good job. ♪ >> gloria stinum, it is an honor to meet you. >> it is an honor to be here. >> thank you. >> let me start broad. is america, in 2012, a sexist country? >> i don't generalize. >> no -- ease, generalize.

all the people that believed in equality by race, by sex, by class, by sexuality, are now in the majority. you know, so that is a huge change. but what that means is that the hierarchical thinking, you know, through no fault of theirs, got born into thinking that people should live in hierarchies are nowwvery scared. all the more so, because, you know, in two minute, we're not going to be a majority white

you know, they didn't make this up, you know, they got born into it. and it is scary to them. >> right. >> they haven't evolved to the point that they can accept the change that ii not coming, maybe already is here? >> well, some have.

[laughter] >> let me ask the question a difference way. here we are again in 2012. it is reasonable to think on abortion, on contraception, on race to pick through topics that have been in the news during the presidential campaign. it is reasonable to think these are settled policy and settled law. come to find out they're not settled law and could quickly not be settled law. you wonder what happened that we're suddenly refighting all the battles? >> what happened is racism, i mean, suddenly, we have a proud black family in the white house and suddenly, i mean, this year, for the first yearr i believe, babies born were more babies of color than white babies. you know, there is -- there is fear. and it just doesn't feel right

to folks. so the answer is blowing in the wind. you know, it depends what we but it is a profound change to think of this country -- you know, this may be a little far out what i'm about to say, but i think that as people bear the mark of their childhood and that is what is familiar. until they dig it out, look at the wound, i mean, this country was born in a profoundly violent way. you know, the biggest almost genocide in history. you know, 90% of the people who llved here, the 500 tribes and nations, whatever who lived here, were killed by invasion and disease and so on. and i -- we haven't really looked at that. we don't study that part of we're still denying -- you

know, i think we -- the nation needs to look at its childhood. >> have therapy as a nation? >> yes. >> get on the couch, yeah, right. >> but to look at that and look at our beginnings, like a person. we need to do that, too. >> let me ask you about abortion.

>> that tells you that in the end, as much as people attack and attack they can't change -- >> i mean in real life, at least one in three women, statistically speaking, has had an abortion. that is real life. right? it depends how you phrase the question ii public opinion polls, because if you say if you're pro abortion. you know we don't get up in the morning, say it a nice day, i'll have an abortion. it is not a pleasurable experience. if you phrase it the way it should be phrased, which is who makes the decision? i woman in her position or the government. people don't want the government making this decision. and also, reproductive

i mean, people want -- i think eventually, we will end up with something that is more inclusive as men and women, which is, i don't know what it will be called, but i would say it is bodiily integrity. >> the power of the government stops at our skin. >> the idea would be no government will tell me whether i can have an >> no government can tell me not to have a child. >> reproductive freedom means what it says. we have gone from the wall to protect eople from being coerced into an abortion, in the same degree we have forsaken legal abortions. >> vaginal ultrasounds in

texas. >> body invasion. >> you can't do hat. >> you think this would square with the philosophy on the other side, ideologically. with small government, government out of our no. >> you run up against that until it hits abortion and >> they want government off the backs of corporations into the wombs offwomen, because, in order to control population, so you have cheap labor, you have lots of workers, in order to decide or influence which races and which claases increase and which don't. i mean, women's bodies are the means of reproduction. and though it seems to me, it is reasonable to say, ok, we're going to make the decisions about our bodies ourselves, o them, it is seizing control of the means of reproduction, it even

sounds radiccl, right? so, i mean, it is fundamental. it is totally bound up with race and class. i mean, you know, wherever there is racism, it is worse for all women, white and women of color. because white women or whoever ps considered superior, whoever it is, they aree restricted sexually in order to maintain purity, whatever that means, right? and women of color are exploited in order to have more cheap labor. >> yeah. >> so do these two things come together? >> i come back gloria, partly facetious facetiously. partly what you talk about, the restricts are on women, not on men. abortion on women, not on men. the ultrasound mandate are not

on men. >> the virility drugs are paid for insurance. >> we'll pay for cialis, but not birth control. >> hello? >> how can you not -- [applause] >> how can you not at some level conclude that this is about a sexist impulse manifest? >> of course it is. where sexism comes from is controlling reproduction. i don't believe this is a sexist country because he majority don't agree. the majority thinks the government has no bussness interfering in this way. >> if the majority don't agree, why will this be, in all likelihood, a close election? >> because you have in this presidential election, what seems to be a clear choice of two different philosophies of how to governor this country and how to litigate many of the iisues we're talking about. they could not be more stark, the difference. >> right. >> yet, we see the polls,

they're so close. if the majority of the country is on one side on the issues and not the other, what is going on here? >> i think a lot of people are >> wouldn't be the first time that happens. 3 c1 >> they're voting because when people are mad with the >> they're just better at it,

right? it is turning out the votes. >> they have a lot more moneyy too, by and largg. >> and -- and -- listen, i was in palm beach county. [chuckling] >> 2000 election..3 c1 it was 9:00 a.m., 700 people in the auditorium. people started to raise their hands. they said it was weird i couldn't vote because there were police cars around where i was supposed to vote. the senior housing, the bus went to thh wrong place. by the time it was over, i had

>> [indiscernible] >> absolutely. you look at the margin, what was going on. it was a stolen election. you know, at this time, we have to not onlyyvote, we have to fight to vote. >> voter suppression efforts. >> yeah. there is no evidence of voter fraud but all the elaborate identification. >> the people -- let me take pp for a moment, those people. people that are implementing a lot of the voter i.d. methods -pin texas, pennsylvania, ohio, curtailing the early vote are saying there are instances of voter fraud. >> they have never been able to come up with anything

resembliig 1%. inadequate given the negative impact. >> absolutely. >> when you talk about thee economy, mitt romney was asked earlier in this presidential campaign, are the republicans waging a war on women. he said the president is waging a war on women, because the issue they care about the most is the economy. they care about being able to have a job, have their husband have a job, put their kids in school, have food on the table, healthcare. the real war on women is the bad economy. >> he is terrible on that. he doesn't support the lily ledbetter act, which is necessary to get women equal pay. >> amazing, again. 2012, we're still talking about equal pay for develwomen. >> right, right. if women had equal pay for equal work, we would have $200 billion more in the economy, exactly where we needed with buying power. >> [indiscernible].

>> absolutely. he's not supporting equal pay even. >> yeah. >> so i'm guessing you're not voting for him? [laughter] >> is that a fair assumption. i'm old. >> why? there are people that will tell you, look, mitt romney is not nearly as conservative at his core as a lot of people nominated by the republicans before. >> i know. >> a lot of the stuff he says -- you actually view him to be not as conservattve as reagan, bush junior.. >> nixon, ll sorts of things could not get nominated now. first bush, who supporttd --

>> he would be opposed because of his support. >> are you for obama? do you think the president has done an adequate job on these issues. >> i think he hassa good heart, a good head, that he's done the best he could possibly do. and we have to stop looking at the top and starts saying, what am i doing? you know, it is true that he could have done more, i think, in the first two years. but he hadn't had the experience. he didn't know what the ultra right wing was like. the good news about him is he's conciliatory. the bad news is that he's conciliatory.& in the first two years, he maybe could have done more. he did the best we could. you know, we have to take responsibility ourselves and stop looking out there and, you know, blame him for it. what were we doing? >> let's talk about that. here you are, still active on a lot of the issues, but having spent a long time,

decades in the middle of the fight. what you did all the years, what you advocated others to do, do what you said, you took responsibility in the issues yourself. you didn't look up. you said if things will change, we have to change. you were a true grassroots,

right? and the problem is, i think that -- a problem is that democratics and progressives, independents, whatever, say to republican women, how can you be a republiian? this turns them off. it would turn us off. if you just say, look, the republican party eft you. you didn't leave the republican party. you know, it was the first to support the equal rights amendment. as i was saying. ok. let's just look at the issues. the problem is that we -- and

the media contributes to this. we think there are two sides to this issue, only have two parties. actually, there are not two sides to every issue. there are 13 to some, there are six to some. because a lot are not important. >> a lot of people think republican and think it is cent rie centerist, sometimes i think the women's movement would be well suited to take back the republican party. we could put on our pearls.

[laughter] >> that is what the right wing did. >> it beats dressing like a hello! & >> we have a couple of miiutes left. i want to ask you about the new generation of kids that are removed from a lot of the fights, maybe not now because we are reopening a lot of the battle lines on abortion and other issues. my daughter, about to be 16.

for her, the era of feminism and the transformation of the country is so long ago, it is hard for her to imagine a world in which the fights have to be waged. you could forgive kids today and young women in college thinking oh, no those things won't be taken away from me. talk to them. what should they understand about the world they're about to take control of. >> i don't want them to be -pgrateful, i want them to be ungrateful. >> you want them uugrateful? why? >> becaussei want them to have higher standards and say why is it i'm as much in college debt as the guy next to me and i will earn $2 million less in& my lifetime to pay off that debt. why is it that i don't feel as safe in the public streets as a young man would feel? why is it that women still, to put it mildly, have much more responsibility for raising children than men do? kids have two parents.

hello? there is not a star in the says. no matter what anybody [laughter] actually, what is happeniig in a lot of cases is that people are mistaking the male pattern of activism -- i don't mean to overgeneralize. from the female pattern of activism, men, not you, not lots of men, tend to be rebellious in youth aad get more conservative with age because they replace their powerful fathers. so a lot of the truth of the life of a lot of young womenn is that they haven't been in the labor force yet. especially not for a period of time, been treated unfairly. they haven't been parents yet and discovered who takes care of children and who doesn't.

so life activates them. >> yeah. >> so yyu're hopeful that kids today may not see the stakes, but will eventually see. >> in terms of public opinion polls,,young women are much more in favor of feminist issues than older women. and similarly, another myth that the public ooiiion polls does in, is that -- iimean the very irst poll, which i'm sorry to say it was the who sponsored it. l, that is >> that is the old days. >> on women's opinions on women's issues, which was in 1972. black wwmen, they didn't but anyway. black women were wice as likeey to support feminism and feminist issues as white women. yet, you know, i learned feminiss from mainly from black women.

and, you knoo flo kennedy. yet there is this decisive notion that t is a white, middle class movement, when, you know, it is just not true. i mean, reportersssometimes say to me, aren't you interested in anything other than the women's movement. and i always say -- for 40 years i have been telling them, tell me one thhng that is separate. they have never been able to come up with one single thing that isn't transformed. >> we're out of time. how fascinating to get to hear you to talk about this stuff. i wouldn't be happier. >> thank you for allowing time for actual talk. thank you. >> and thank you for being here. [applause] >> we'd love to have you join us in the studio. visit our website at klru.org/overheard to find

i put her in the middle seat. [laughter] >> funding for overheard with evan smith is provided in part by hillco partners, texas governmeet affairs consultancy and global health care -pconsulting business unit, hell co -- hillco health. and matson mchale foundation and aad also by the alice cleburg reynolds foundation and viewers like you. thank you.